Scaling Tech Solutions: What Challenges Do Businesses Face?
To help you navigate the challenges of scaling tech solutions in a growing business, we asked CTOs and co-founders for their expert advice. From implementing data lakes for efficient management to ensuring compliance with government regulations, here are the top seventeen insights these leaders shared on overcoming scaling challenges.
- Implement Data Lakes for Efficient Management
- Choose Relational Databases Over No-SQL
- Leverage Outsourcing for Quick Team Expansion
- Use Managed IT and Cloud Services
- Adopt Zero-Trust Security Model
- Opt for Open-Source Cloud Solutions
- Invest in Comprehensive CRM Systems
- Plan for Scaling Early On
- Test Multilingual Support Thoroughly
- Prioritize Digital Literacy Training
- Maintain Consistent Brand Messaging
- Measure Impact of Improvements
- Design for Scalability From the Start
- Prioritize Scalable Architecture
- Choose Appropriate Tech Stack
- Align Marketing Strategies With Growth
- Ensure Compliance With Government Regulations
Implement Data Lakes for Efficient Management
Managing large volumes of data efficiently is a big challenge. This issue arises because, as businesses expand, they generate and accumulate data at an exponential rate, which can quickly overwhelm traditional data-management systems. From my experience, the best solution to this challenge is implementing data lakes.
A data lake is a centralized repository that allows you to store all your structured and unstructured data at any scale. The power of a data lake lies in its ability to handle vast amounts of diverse data from various sources, making it accessible for various forms of analytics.
To do it right, start by ensuring your data lake is built on a scalable, high-performance platform like Hadoop or a cloud-based solution that offers flexibility and scalability. It’s crucial to establish robust data governance and quality controls from the outset to maintain the integrity and security of the data stored. Master your data, master your future.
Viacheslav Petrenko, Chief Technology Officer, LITSLINK
Choose Relational Databases Over No-SQL
Typically, tech solutions are built on a No-SQL database in the initial phases as it aids in quickly releasing the product to the market. But once scale kicks in, database size and feature diversity kick in. This results in lower speeds and a poor customer experience. When we build new products, we make sure to stick with relational databases even though it increases the tech-development time. For services where we pick No-SQL services to begin with, we create a transition plan in advance so that we don’t need to transition with a huge DB and high tech debt.
Deepti Chopra, Co-founder, Adaface
Leverage Outsourcing for Quick Team Expansion
One significant challenge organizations face when scaling tech solutions is not being able to grow their technical teams quickly enough to meet increasing demands. A valuable tip for overcoming this challenge is to leverage outsourcing. By partnering with a reliable tech outsourcing partner, businesses can quickly access a pool of skilled professionals across various roles, from DevOps to design. This ensures that projects continue to move forward without delay.
Outsourcing allows organizations to scale their tech capabilities efficiently, providing the flexibility to ramp up quickly without the burdens of recruiting, hiring, or onboarding. Additionally, it offers the ability to scale down just as easily when project demands decrease, maintaining cost-effectiveness and agility. This approach enables businesses to stay competitive and responsive to market changes while focusing on core business activities.
Sergiy Fitsak, Managing Director, Fintech Expert, Softjourn
Use Managed IT and Cloud Services
One challenge organizations face when scaling tech solutions is the limitations of their existing infrastructure. As a business grows, its hardware, software, and network capabilities may struggle to keep up with increased demands, leading to potential bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
To overcome this, a valuable tip is to leverage managed IT services and cloud solutions. These services provide businesses with the flexibility to scale resources efficiently, ensuring that their IT infrastructure can adapt to growth without requiring significant upfront investment in physical hardware.
Additionally, focusing on disaster recovery and proactive IT consulting is crucial. By implementing robust disaster-recovery plans and regularly consulting with IT experts, businesses can ensure that their systems are resilient, data is secure, and any potential issues are addressed before they impact operations. This proactive approach not only mitigates risks but also supports seamless scaling, allowing businesses to focus on growth with confidence.
Paul Iwaszek, Director of IT, Go Technology Group
Adopt Zero-Trust Security Model
Data security and compliance become increasingly challenging as a business scales, especially with the expanding amount of data and evolving regulatory requirements.
One effective strategy is to adopt a zero-trust security model, which continuously verifies the identity of users and devices before granting access to critical systems. This model reduces the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches, which is crucial during periods of rapid growth.
Additionally, employing automated compliance-management tools can help stay on top of regulatory changes and ensure that your systems are always up-to-date. Regularly reviewing and updating your security policies and procedures keeps your organization prepared for emerging threats and compliance challenges.
Thomas Medlin, Co-Founder, JumpMD
Opt for Open-Source Cloud Solutions
One major challenge growing businesses often face is managing the disproportionate inflow of money relative to tech expenses, especially in the early stages. When your budget is tight, every dollar counts, and you may feel overwhelmed by the high costs of proprietary software solutions.
The key to overcoming this challenge is to look for open-source, cloud-based solutions. They’re typically more affordable than proprietary ones and can scale with your business as it grows.
Plus, they often come with the bonus of a supportive community for troubleshooting and ideas. You can effectively manage your tech expenses while ensuring your business has the digital tools it needs to thrive.
Yuvraj Pratap, Founder & CEO, Supplement Launchpad
Invest in Comprehensive CRM Systems
One major challenge organizations face when scaling tech solutions is maintaining system integration and data consistency across various platforms. As my digital marketing company grew, we struggled with disparate tools and platforms that didn’t communicate well with each other, leading to data silos and inefficiencies.
To overcome this, we invested in a comprehensive CRM system integrated with our existing tools, ensuring seamless data flow and a unified view of our operations. By choosing platforms designed to grow with your business and ensuring they can communicate effectively with each other, you can maintain efficiency and data integrity, ultimately supporting smoother growth and better decision-making. This strategic approach has been instrumental in our ability to scale effectively while maintaining high operational standards.
Marcus Clarke, Owner, Searchant
Plan for Scaling Early On
Scaling up is a stage of company development that you need to think about from the very beginning. If you have created a business that earns a profit, your competitors are bound to repeat it. But the volume of any market is limited, and it will not be possible to increase profits indefinitely. At some point, it will start shrinking. So, it is time to scale your business.
At the same time, you may encounter various kinds of difficulties at the scaling stage, which in the end will not lead you to the desired result. First and foremost, scaling a business will require additional investment, and a wrong assessment of the needs may result in freezing the unfinished capital investment even before the launch. Also, scaling the business will require freezing more money in working capital, at least in the first phase.
If the specifics of the business include a long accounts-receivable turnover cycle, the company may face cash gaps and thus the need to access temporary credit resources. Even if access to credit resources is available, it is necessary to ensure that the growing business generates sufficient funds to cover, in addition to operational needs, interest and loan repayments.
From my experience, always plan for scaling early on. Think about potential hurdles and prepare for them. Be sure to build a robust financial model that can withstand the initial cash-flow gaps and other growing pains. Having a clear, strategic vision and the flexibility to adapt can make all the difference when scaling your business. And remember, stay patient and persistent. Scaling is a marathon, not a sprint.
Mike Sadowski, Founder & CEO, Brand24
Test Multilingual Support Thoroughly
From a European perspective, I have found that companies often start off with a tech solution that primarily uses English, with assurances that there is support for many other languages built in. Later, when we go to scale, it turns out that certain functionalities break or aren’t fully supported for non-English-speaking employees and customers. It is actually remarkable how many issues that I have faced with this—from fielding surveys in multiple countries to allowing basic data input with different alphabets or simple accent marks.
My tip is to be very upfront and specific about the long-term needs of the product and perform tests in several geographies with multiple languages before committing to a long-term agreement.
Shannon Listopad, Owner and Founder, November Consulting
Prioritize Digital Literacy Training
As we have expanded our tech infrastructure and broadened our solution, we have found that the greatest challenge is ensuring that our employees, across all departments, are equipped with the digital mindset necessary to fully leverage these tools. While technology can be scaled rapidly, cultural transformation is a more time-taking process.
Overcoming this challenge requires a multi-faceted approach. First, we have invested heavily in digital literacy training programs, focusing not just on technical skills but also on understanding how technology can enhance business processes. Second, we have fostered a culture of experimentation and learning by creating safe spaces for employees to explore new technologies and share their insights.
Third, we have integrated digital transformation into our performance-evaluation metrics, ensuring employees are rewarded for embracing and driving technological change. Remember that scaling tech solutions is not only about acquiring new tools; it’s about empowering people to use those tools effectively. By prioritizing the human element, we have been able to accelerate our digital transformation journey and drive sustainable growth.
Raviraj Hegde, SVP of Growth & Sales, Donorbox
Maintain Consistent Brand Messaging
The growth of our online presence can make it tough to ensure that our brand voice remains consistent across different platforms, which might confuse customers and weaken our brand’s impact. One significant challenge we face with technological growth is keeping our brand messaging consistent across an expanding array of marketing channels.
To tackle this issue, we create detailed brand guidelines. These guidelines clearly outline our brand’s voice, tone, and visual style to ensure all our marketing efforts are unified. It’s also vital for our teams working on various channels to collaborate closely, exchanging ideas and feedback to keep everything aligned.
Reyansh Mestry, Head of Marketing, TopSource Worldwide
Measure Impact of Improvements
There is a constant tension between maintenance, the demands of the moment, and building what’s next. The only way to make sense of it all is to measure the impact of completing an improvement against the amount of work it requires. “Impact” is a fuzzy word, but it’s something that can be defined before committing to new work—both qualitatively and quantitatively. You know you understand the problem and the benefit of the work once you can successfully make the case to others on your team.
David Schmudde, Co-Founder and CTO, Yorba
Design for Scalability From the Start
When scaling tech solutions within a growing business, maintaining system performance and reliability under increased load is the most critical challenge everyone faces. As the client base grows, the demand on the system’s infrastructure can lead to slower performance, increased downtime, and potential system failures if not managed properly. The most critical aspects to take care of are listed below:
- Design for Scalability From the Start – Build your architecture with scalability in mind. Use micro-services to allow individual components to scale independently. Adopt cloud-based solutions like AWS, Google Cloud, or MS Azure, which offer flexible scaling options.
- Automated Scaling – Utilize automated-scaling features provided by cloud platforms. Auto-scaling groups from AWS can adjust the number of active servers based on real-time demand depending on the load on the system, ensuring that resources are efficiently allocated.
- Load Balancing – Distribute traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server becomes a bottleneck when the system CPU goes up. Load balancers can also provide redundancy, enhancing system reliability.
- Database Optimization – Optimize your databases to handle increased transactions. This might include database sharding, indexing, and the use of distributed databases like Amazon DynamoDB, or use a document DB like MongoDB.
- Comprehensive Monitoring – Implement robust monitoring and alerting systems to keep track of performance metrics and detect issues before they escalate. Tools like New Relic, Datadog, and CloudWatch can provide real-time insights into your system’s health. Use Sentry in case you need to opt for a free solution.
- Caching – Implement caching strategies to reduce the load on your backend systems. Use tools like Redis or Memcached to cache frequently accessed data and improve response times. Don’t over-cache or under-cache. Just maintain the right balance.
- Disaster Recovery Planning – Systems break. We all know that. Prepare for potential failures with a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Ensure that your data is backed up regularly and that you have a plan for quickly restoring services.
Vanshul Chawla, Chief Technology Officer, Vetic
Prioritize Scalable Architecture
One significant challenge organizations face when scaling tech solutions is managing the increased complexity of their IT infrastructure. As the business grows, integrating new technologies, systems, and processes can lead to fragmentation and inefficiencies.
A valuable lesson for overcoming this challenge is to prioritize a scalable architecture from the start. This involves using modular and flexible technologies that can easily adapt to growth and change. For example, adopting cloud-based solutions can provide the necessary scalability and agility without the need for extensive on-premises infrastructure.
Additionally, implementing robust IT governance and standardized processes ensures that all new solutions are aligned with the organization’s overall strategy and can be seamlessly integrated. Regularly reviewing and updating the tech roadmap also helps in anticipating future needs and avoiding potential bottlenecks.
Dustin Mathews, Director of Information Technology
Choose Appropriate Tech Stack
One major challenge growing businesses face is the mistaken belief that they need an enterprise-level tech stack to scale effectively. This pitfall can seriously backfire. Often, there’s a cheaper, more flexible, and easier-to-implement solution that better aligns with business needs.
Take, for instance, a medium-sized business eyeing Salesforce just because 90% of Fortune 500 companies use it. While Salesforce is powerful, it can be overkill for many mid-sized businesses, becoming a financial and strategic burden. The costs of implementing and modifying such a robust system can skyrocket, making it an expensive endeavor. Instead, they could consider a more modest solution like HubSpot, getting the necessary features at a lower price point, with a gentler learning curve and more straightforward implementation and modification processes.
So, when scaling tech solutions for your growing business, choose tools that fit your budget and scope for the foreseeable future. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need the most complex, high-end tools just because the big players use them. In short, match your tech stack to your business’s actual needs and growth trajectory. It’ll save you time, money, and a lot of headaches.
Jonathan Buffard, Digital Marketing Director, Bottom Line Marketing Agency
Align Marketing Strategies With Growth
One significant challenge when scaling technology is keeping marketing strategies aligned with growth. We adapt our approaches to handle a larger customer base and more complex data, ensuring that our marketing remains effective and personalized, even as we grow. Our practical tip is to continuously analyze and segment your customer base. This strategy has proven essential as we tailor our marketing efforts to meet the specific needs of different customer segments.
Sergey Taver, Marketing Manager, Precision Watches
Ensure Compliance With Government Regulations
A common challenge when scaling tech solutions is ensuring compliance with government regulations. We faced this when integrating a new project-management tool. The lesson learned was to involve compliance experts early in the process to ensure that all features met federal requirements. This proactive approach helped us avoid potential pitfalls and ensured a smoother implementation.
Josh Ladick, President, GSA Focus
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